Oranges and Lemons

The bells of St Paul's ring out over our little village as we rise to face another day of hard protesting. I have been a Protester ever since finishing my apprenticeship. I go wherever I am needed.

Just tell me the cause
and my slogans are yours.

We are protesting against capitalism. We think the world be better off in lower case. We think people shouldn't be poor. All the time we get poor people trying to join us: winos, people from squats and hostels, the homeless and tentless. That's exactly what we're protesting about, we tell them. People shouldn't be like you. So take your skanky, unwashed bodies elsewhere.

Poverty stinks,
That's what we thinks.

I asked a passer-by whether capitalism was dead yet. We've been at it for weeks and you think it would at least be feeling a little unwell. He said he and his wife were on holiday and asked me if I'd take a photograph of them standing by the tents. I asked if they were capitalists and they said no, they were Japanese. I had a suspicion that it was all the same thing but I couldn't prove it.

Ponchos and shawls,
say the bells of St Paul's.

While I'm here I do a little viral marketing. You have to make a living somehow. I divide my efforts equally between Costa and Coffee Republic, I'm on the payroll of both, but everybody goes to Starbucks anyway since it's closer. When capitalism falls I'd like to have my own coffee empire in memory of my roots.

Coffeealism,
not capitalism!

I make up slogans all the time. I just can't help it. Sometimes they are about things that nobody has yet protested about but I write them down just in case. I've got some good ones for anybody who doesn't like cabbage or kung fu or goldfish. The trouble with capitalism is that it doesn't rhyme with anything. That's one of the main reasons to do away with it, in my opinion. How can you protest properly against something that doesn't rhyme?

Give us slogans,
They're as nice as Wogans.

What are we against? Capitalism sums it up nicely. There's Mark, for instance, who was made homeless when his parents threw him out of the house. His father collects benefits from the capitalist system, so must be a capitalist. Therefore, if he is against parents throwing their glue-sniffing kids onto the streets, he must be against capitalism. He saw it at once when I explained it to him, and realised that being an anti-capitalist meant free food and glue for a few weeks. He's no trouble to anybody if we keep him supplied with tubes of Airfix.

Give the man glue,
He's deserving as you.